Tom and Jerry and Me

Am I brave enough to believe?

by Michael Ross

"Are you all right?" my older brother asked concerned. He was 9 and I was 5.

I sat sobbing in front of a cartoon episode of Tom and Jerry. "Why do the cat and the mouse always have to fight?" I screamed out. "Every episode, again and again. Why can't they just be nice to each other?"

Some big brothers save their little brothers from getting beaten up; my big brother protected me from losing my sense of hope that the world could be a caring place. One day he showed up at the soccer field with a gift for me. Pulling me aside with the hush of someone uncovering a rare sapphire, he revealed a sight I had never seen -- a blue smurf. I recall experiencing a sense of inner peace as he described the smurf world. Smurfs got along. They couldn't show off because they all wore white uniforms that helped you focus on each smurf's unique identity -- Handy, Sleepy, Chef and the kindly elder Papa Smurf. Smurfs skipped and sang and all appreciated the qualities and quirks of the others. Together they were a great society, for me anyway.

For the next few years I left behind the world of competitions, cliques and popularity and escaped happily into the mushroom houses of my smurfs. At age 11, when I got into punk rock, I told my parents that if they didn't take me out of public school, my previous clique that I'd abandoned -- a gang of heavy metal rockers -- would murder me. My parents acquiesced.

There were three other Jews at St. John's, my new Episcopalian parish school. We wore blue uniforms. Except for the fact that I had to attend church every day, it was almost like being a smurf. They even asked me to sing along with them. I was so honored that I would sing louder than everybody else till I got the name JC, at which point I would be silent. By the end of ninth grade, as president of the student body and star of the debate team, the headmaster expelled me for an incident where I challenged him and he had to back down. He agreed to take the expulsion off my record if I'd agree to leave.

There was a unique person within me, waiting to come out.

The thought of going back to public school -- to be taught by teachers who wanted to be there less than me, where I moved my pencil and not my mind -- was unbearable. I did the next best thing to dropping out -- I moved to Europe. My first six months as an exchange student, I was almost unable to communicate in my new foreign language. I grunted and made signs to get what I needed. It was great. Without the pressure to be popular or to achieve, I discovered the power of silence. For years I'd been patching myself up with personas -- the heavy metaller, the skater, the punk, the student body president, the athlete. I was trying too hard to be somebody that others would find impressive, to get the approval I was looking for. I did not realize that there was a person within me, someone very unique and special waiting to come out.

I was 16 when I met myself. One day I was writing in my journal and my pen refused to go. I stopped writing and said to myself: Okay, you tell me what you want to write. My pen began to express thoughts and feelings that I didn't know I had inside me. In the awkwardness of that personal encounter, I quickly squashed the moment and went back to putting on the personas I thought would get me ahead in life. I began writing poetry, and modeling for artistic photo shoots. I grew long curly hair, a goatee and Salvador Dali moustache. By the time I arrived in New York City for college, I'd disassociated myself from the American kid I was before. The other college kids assumed I was European. I didn't correct them.

Russian Happy Face

Everyone has certain considerations when picking a college. Great professors, party school, or resume prestige. I chose Vassar because I was told that a Vassar student "is likely a musical prodigy, speaks two extinct languages, and got straight B-minuses in prep school." Maybe I'd at last find a playground of under-achiever dreamers who had a love for what the world could be, but not the system running it. Maybe together I'd be in the graduating class that would redesign society. Maybe the 40-60 male-female student ratio would also spur my idealism.

My bohemian appearance gained me immediate entrance in the Vassar clique who titled themselves the BPs -- the Beautiful People. The clique was a mirror of my worst qualities.

My business was to spread joy.

I left Vassar and vowed to get as far away from Western culture as I could. So I moved to Russia. It was just then that the Soviet empire was falling apart. A nation of 250 million citizens were broken and waiting for someone to show them the way. I arrived at age 19 with no college degree. Everyone was gray and sullen, amidst the wreckage of a world power. My contribution was to spread joy. I opened a nightclub. Every weekend people would show up and smile. Our crowd would go on to re-invent Russia -- music producers, fashion editors, Time and CNN reporters, oil men and artists.

Luckily, I got out of the nightclub business before the Chechen mafia got me. Instead I became a media and advertising guy in the great movement producing Russia's new youth culture. So what did I do? I started importing all the Western ideas I'd escaped. We became the first team to paint the shambles of Russia with a happy face and a gaudy Versace jacket.

Then one day my friend Arkady, a 24-year-old put in charge of 25 percent of the world's nickel supply, asked me if I wanted to go scuba diving in Eilat, Israel.
Israel? I thought to myself. I'd only go scuba diving in a place that had more to offer beyond the coral reefs. The Bahamas or Fiji maybe, but not Israel. I told Arkady I would go, but only in a year after I had read up on the meaning of Israel and its people.

The Exodus, the Holy Land, Exile -- the more I read the more confused I became about who the Jews were, and who I was. Worse, though, was when it became clear to me that one day my own children would ask me why we were Jewish and I would have no answers.

I figured that to get a true taste of something, you drink from its source. If you want Islam, go to Mecca. Buddhism, go to China. Hinduism, go to India. I wanted to know what Judaism was about, so I decided to look for Jews in Israel who really believed in it. I'd decipher if they were fanatics, or if they had been transporting something valuable through the desert of their difficult history.

Songs from the Heart

A year later I showed up with my luggage in the sandstone of the Old City. "Welcome to Jerusalem!" The man who met me looked right past my shorts, black t-shirt, designer sport coat and very long curly hair. I'd never before seen an observant Jew, but this guy was down-to-earth and congenially upbeat. He brought me to a window outside a shul where bearded men were swaying intensely in silence. I wondered for a second whether I'd walked into Children of the Corn.

"Did you always dress like this?" I later asked many of the young men I saw praying. "No, I was a Wall Street banker… No I was a Harvard law student…" the answers came. Each one, stripped of his social costume, shared with me the love of being Jewish: the MIT scientist who spoke of the universe with the wonder of a child, the ex-gang leader who sat and taught me to read the Jewish alphabet, a modern dancer whose sensitivity to spirituality was as subtle as beautiful choreography.

The smurfs were sweet, but this was better.

Like a big brother caring for his little brother, they reached past my image and pulled me aside, as if to say: "Calm down and look. I have something precious to show you." As each opened his treasure in Torah for me, I found myself gazing at ideas I'd always intuited, but had never been brave enough to believe in.

The smurfs were sweet, but this was much better. These were real live Jews and I was one of them. These Jews sang songs from the heart, held hands to support one another, and wore a uniform in order to focus on each other, as opposed to focusing on themselves. Nobody tried to stand out, yet each one was unforgettable.

Of all the reasons I had ever seen people join together -- to get rich or become famous, to look good or to feel good, to be beautiful or to compete -- I'd never before seen people come together for the purpose of becoming better people, and sincerely desiring the same for me.

At last, I understood what I'd been crying about, sitting in front of the TV, as Tom and Jerry were fighting.

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Visitor Comments: 7

(7)
Regina,
June 13, 2008 11:52 AM

Thank you for writing this

Dear Michael:
Your beautifully written article has filled my heart today. I can feel your joy and peace. Thank you for sharing this! All the best,
Regina

(6)
Anonymous,
June 12, 2008 9:46 AM

I taught I taw a puddy tat

I also used to get so upset at Sylvester and Tweety, Road Runner and Coyote, and the Three Stooges made me cringe. Shirley Temple... ahhh, justice and lollypops, that's more like it. Then Star Trek--where no man had gone before. Now I am influenced by Devora, Miriam, Esther, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah.

Thank you for taking the time to share your amazing journey home.

(5)
Anonymous,
June 10, 2008 5:00 PM

What a nice essay...

I am not even Jewish, and I think it is a wonderful story of finding one's identity, and an interesting journey to boot.

(4)
Beverly Kurtin,
June 9, 2008 2:44 AM

The Joy of Tom and Jerry

It all comes back to the simplicity and joy of just being a Jew. And so much more. My partner in Torah called me because she was concerned about me, the last time she''d called me I hadn''t been feeling well and had been in and out of the hospital twice in a week.

So I told her what was happening and in the middle of our talking, she told me to run, don''t walk, to the hospital. Now she knew why she had called me. I described something that had happened the previous night, "â€¦it was lightening and then suddenly my eyes were filled with ''floaters.''"

She had had the same thing in the past. "You may have a detached retina," go now. So I did. Although it wasn''t quite a detached retina, it was close and I got orders to go to an ophthalmologist on Shabbat morning. Nu? I''ve had to make decisions like that before, Hashem wants us to take care of our health, so I went to the doctor''s office and to make a long story short, I''m glad my partner called and that I went. I do have a problem. Not as serious, but it is a problem that needs to be taken care of stat.

If I had not chosen to join the Torah Partners program, I''d have never discovered the problem until I might have lost my sight in my left eye. Hah, and all I thought was that I was going to learn more about Torah. But isn''t that what Torah is? Life?

You gained insight, I may have retained my sight. How sweet it is to be a Jew!

(3)
LD,
June 8, 2008 9:00 AM

The Divine''s call to meaning and purpose

Enjoyed your account of your life journey for meaning and purpose. We all around the world do the same, some more urgently and passionately depending on the disparity or severity of our life circumstances. Not being from a Jewish background I am impressed by what I''ll say is the Divinely inspired dedication within Judaism to elevating the condition of humanity - the ideas, concepts, principles espoused within your system of faith have spread their beneficent influences around the world amongst all kinds of people groups for thousands of years. May you and many others continue to uncover the most brilliant gems within your ancient faith and let the light serve the world.

(2)
Ruth Housman,
June 8, 2008 5:32 AM

Realization

Hi, I found this story really interesting, tracing a life as it did. So many ventures and yet, something always missing. It''s interesting isn''t it, how it all circles back? This reminds me of Finnegan''s Wake, how the beginning meets the end. Life seems to have this inbuilt sensibility and sensitivity. Perhaps as you say, you were missing something and finally, so beautifully, having taken a journey, you found it!

(1)
Michal Batya,
June 8, 2008 3:18 AM

Wonderful article

I was delighted reading this.In such a nice way, which made me smile all the time, you tell the most serious truth.Thank you so much!

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!